Younger scientists are more religious than older scientists—the inverse of the general population, where older people tend to be more religious than younger people.

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There is indeed a very real clash of cultures born of different ideas, different ideologies, and different practices. While these variances are deep and persistent, Ecklund argues that the tone and nature of the exchange must change. Scientists need to understand far more about how people experience and practice religion and spirituality. They need to be much more skilled in translating what they do for public consumption. If religious scientists don’t open up about their religious and spiritual experiences and convictions, colleagues will continue to assume (incorrectly) that these things are absent from their professional circles.

My own view is that no one came through the age of materialism unscathed and too many of the older scientists are simply avoiding contention by not counting the cost of the imploding materialist paradigm.

If one either practises or is familiar with any actual science, why pay any attention at all to the tidal wave of nonsense from “evolutionary psychology” purporting to explain religion, when the nonsense vendor is tone deaf to any experience that might actually explain it, and refuses from the very beginning to consider such experiences possible?

On that score, isn’t it time to exercise skepticism? I’m not talking about Michael Shermer’s erzatz SkepticismTM. I mean asking what, besides genuine inability to know that evolutionary psychology is flapdoodle funded large, qualifies them to be doing such a study?

2 Responses to Younger scientists more religious than older ones?

Scientists need to understand far more about how people experience and practice religion and spirituality. They need to be much more skilled in translating what they do for public consumption. If religious scientists don’t open up about their religious and spiritual experiences and convictions, colleagues will continue to assume (incorrectly) that these things are absent from their professional circles.

Maybe scientists don’t need to do any of this. It could be that the solution is for the public to take a greater skepticism of what scientists say when they start talking about a variety of topics, from religious ones to philosophical ones to political ones.